For a few days now we have been studying through the book of Habakkuk, and thus far in our search we have discovered Habakkuk's perplexity as to why God does not judge the wickedness that he sees all around him. God has given Habakkuk His answer even though He knew Habakkuk would not believe His solution if He told him about it. Sure enough, Habakkuk is in a state of stunned unbelief. His trouble comes with the agent, the Chaldeans, that God has chosen to implement judgment upon the Israelites. Now Habakkuk is even more perplexed as he cannot understand how his everlasting, holy, and just God could use such a wicked agent for retribution. Habakkuk continues his thoughts of disbelief in verse thirteen of the first chapter:
You are of purer eyes than to behold evil, and can not look on iniquity: why do you look upon them that deal treacherously, and hold your tongue when the wicked devours the man that is more righteous than he?
We can almost see Habakkuk wrestling with what he knows about God compared what God has told him in the previous verses. Habakkuk is struggling to understand how God whose nature is holy can use people who are wicked to implement justice. First, Habakkuk appeals to God's purity - “You are of purer eyes than to behold evil, and can not look on iniquity:” Habakkuk's understanding of God is that God is pure. God's eyes are pure, and they are so pure that He cannot even bear to look upon evil and iniquity. It is true that God is pure and holy, but from these verses we realize that He may still use the wicked for His own purposes. Habakkuk's understanding of God was not complete, and this caused him great bewilderment.
Next Habakkuk questioned God, “why do you look upon them that deal treacherously?” Habakkuk was very brave in that he questioned God. Let's think about that for a moment. Here is a creation of God, brought into and maintained into existence by God, questioning the Creator who allowed him to “be” in the first place. It does seem just a little presumptive, doesn't it? Yet, God allowed it. In fact, He allowed it to the point of giving permission for Habakkuk to write it in a book that we have the privilege of studying today. Still Habakkuk cannot understand how God who has pure, unadulterated eyes could look upon those who deal treacherously or who act covertly, fraudulently or perfidiously. In other words, how could God look upon those who were so sneaky and without regard to others?
Next Habakkuk wonders why God doesn't say anything when the wicked prevail. He wrote, “and hold your tongue when the wicked devours the man that is more righteous than he?” How many times have we wondered why it seems that God says nothing when the wicked are in control? Habakkuk is having great difficulty reconciling this, and when we put ourselves in his shoes, we can understand. Habakkuk knows the Israelites are bad, but the Chaldeans are horrible! Habakkuk knows there is wickedness within his own tribes, but the Chaldeans are much worse than they. Have we ever done this sort of comparison? We tend to “rank” people according to our own standard of righteousness too, don't we? We say or at least think, “well surely that person is better than that other person, and they are much more wicked than those others.” This is what Habakkuk was thinking. He could not understand how God would use someone so much more wicked than his people to bring about justice that he asked for in the first place. If we are learning anything from these troubling passages, we are learning that “God's ways are not our ways, and they are beyond our finding out.”
Perhaps we are going through a difficult time that has us wondering what God is doing, and it may even be that we are wondering how God could use a person we deem more wicked than ourselves for implementation of justice. Our answers for these questions come later in this book but for now maybe it would be a good idea for us to consider that we are living under the eyes of the holy and pure Creator, and in areas of our lives where God ways are not our ways we can learn to trust in Him no matter how He works it out.
Next time we will see more of Habakkuk's struggle to understand what God is doing, so read ahead, and we shall join together then.
Until tomorrow...there is more...
Look for the new devotional book “Equipped for Battle – From Generation to Generation” in all major bookstore sites, www.amazon.com ; www.barnesandnobles.com ; download to e-books, and find it locally at www.mrzlc.com/bookstore
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